


And So It Goes

by Zeppelin_Skies



Category: The Boys (Comics), The Boys (TV 2019)
Genre: Angst, Drama, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Humor, Romance, Sexy Times, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:33:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29300454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zeppelin_Skies/pseuds/Zeppelin_Skies
Summary: As Madelyn Stillwell’s personal assistant, Helena Flores finds herself caught between protecting her job, and more importantly her life--or, helping Billy Butcher bring down the supe who killed her best friend, Becca. [Eventual Butcher/OFC]
Relationships: Becca Butcher/Billy Butcher, Billy Butcher/Original Character(s), Billy Butcher/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 30
Kudos: 29





	1. Sasquatch & Chili Cheese

**Author's Note:**

> So I freakin' love this show, and this idea has been rattling around my brain for a while. Hope you enjoy the ride! This first chapter takes place in season 1x05.

**1: Sasquatch & Chili Cheese**

The Believe Expo, contrary to popular belief, was one of Vought’s most important events of the year. Bringing all the supe-worshipping Christians together at a steaming hot fairgrounds served to solidify their conservative base, tote out some Americana via Homelander’s appearance, and put on the show to end all shows up on that stage.

Now they had Starlight to complete the look—the doe-innocent persona giving off Virgin Mary vibes. Helena rolled her eyes behind her sunglasses.

_Ugh. Fuck me._

Helena Flores had grown up Catholic, like most good little girls in a Hispanic household. Even now, for how long she’d been a party to this overpriced scam and hypocrisy, it still made her a bit sick to watch Ezekiel to stand above all these starry-eyed idiots and claim superheroes were ordained by God.

She maintained a different view: all supes were whores.

Once the opener came to a close and the next B-list supe with actual, _goddamn_ angel wings took to the stage, Helena noticed a red and blue blur flying overhead and heard the distant _thump_ of a landing. Sighing quietly, she held her clipboard and tablet closer to her chest and made her way back to the staff-only tents, raising her sunglasses to the top of her head. Homelander was right on time, which meant she had to plaster a more neutral expression on her face before he came thundering in.

And thunder he did, with Ashley trailing quickly (and nervously) behind. Homelander’s expectant gaze met Helena’s the moment he was inside the tent. 

“Grab Madelyn,” he demanded from her. “I need to talk to her about these _fucking_ talking points.”

Ah yes. Helena noticed the single page in his hands that no doubt held the speech Mr. Edgar had prepared for his final address at the convention. He’d always had an issue with the CEO putting words in his mouth, but it was becoming more of an issue in recent weeks.

Helena shot a thin look at Ashley, who stood by the tent’s exit like she couldn’t wait to bolt. _Useless bitch._

“Miss Stillwell isn’t here today,” Helena said, shifting her gaze back to Homelander. “Would you like Ashley to go through the talking points with you?”

But Homelander was already raising a finger, talking over her. “Helena.”

The way he approached her, using his full height to deliberately intimidate her, only lit her blood with anger. Though her spine and muscles did tense up as he somewhat invaded her personal space, and he looked down with clear annoyance. Her fingers curled tightly around the tablet. She let nothing show on her face, save for polite patience. But she knew—and he knew—the act she was playing.

“ _Where_ is she?” he asked. She steeled herself, quickly counting backwards from ten in her mind and taking a calming breath through her nose.

“She’s taking her son to the pediatrician,” she answered, “but you know I’m here to help make sure the Expo runs smoothly. I’m here to help _you_.”

The words were acid on her tongue, but in the ten long years at Madelyn Stillwell’s beck and call, she’d learned to adopt the woman’s serene professionalism and subtly manipulative, ass-kissing tone.

Homelander’s lips pursed, nostrils flaring a bit as he huffed and stormed out of the tent. Relieved of his presence, Helena let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, and turned to Ashley.

“You didn’t tell him?” Her voice was harsher than she meant to be, but it had the desired effect.

Ashley flinched. Her eyes grew wide and apologetic. Helena knew the younger woman was just covering her ass, and her obvious fear. “I—I forgot.”

Helena scoffed and checked her tablet for the schedule of events. Starlight’s talk with the teens should be over by now, which left Ezekiel’s private gathering and a few meet-and-greets with Starlight and the lesser supes before the final show. No doubt Homelander was already half-way across town to stalk a pediatrician’s office.

She couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty for that, but it was Madelyn’s problem. Homelander would _always_ be Madelyn’s problem, and that was her own damn fault as far as Helena was concerned.

Even so, she sighed and pinched between her brows.

“Now thanks to your little fuck up, Madelyn’s gunna be up my _ass_ ,” she snapped. Looking up from her tablet, she leveled Ashley with a terse glare. “Make sure Starlight is prepped for her five minutes on the stage. I don’t want any more surprises for the rest of the day.”

Ashley couldn’t hide the way her face twisted with annoyance, either at having her wrist slapped, or being ordered around by someone who wasn’t technically her boss.

Helena didn’t give two shits. Right now, she _was_ the boss, and they both knew full well that Helena’s report to Stillwell of today’s events would be more than thorough.

* * *

_This is why I can’t fuck off these five pounds from Christmas_ , she thought, mid-bite of shoving practically half a burger into her face. Aside from committing mass murder, or worse, running her mouth, filling it with food was the best course of action she’d found. Nothing else quite destabilized the stress that came with unsavory encounters with Homelander. And they were never _not_ unsavory.

The urge to let out a button of her pencil skirt reminded Helena of her binges in the last six months since Christmas. _Yeah. More like ten pounds._

What-fucking-ever. If her hips and ass had to pay the price of keeping her “Vought Face” in check, then so be it. But maybe she was a little self-conscious of her less than ladylike appetite as she chewed, scanning the passerby of guests around her for any undue staring.

Among the throng of excited chattering supe-lovers, she paused on someone who didn’t look like he was enjoying himself. His placid frown was noticeable, even with the thick black beard. The more Helena stared, the more something tugged in the back of her mind. There was something familiar about those furrowed brows, the shape and line of his shoulders in that Hawaiian shirt—oddly colorful for someone who frowned so deeply.

His head turned, and before she could look away the line of his gaze claimed hers, holding her there with a shrewd intensity that surprised her. 

“Oh! Miss Flores, is that you?”

Suddenly a middle-aged woman was standing in front of her, talking eagerly with Starlight in tow. Helena recognized the resemblance immediately and set her burger aside on a nearby crafts table, offering Mrs. January her mostly undivided attention. 

“Having a good time, Donna?” she asked, smiling politely as she grabbed a napkin and wiped her hands.

Donna nodded and touched Helena’s arm more familiarly than she was comfortable with, but she ignored that to keep her smile in place. “Of course! I just had a couple questions about Annie’s meet-and-greet.”

Helena took the time to smooth over Donna’s worries that her daughter wouldn’t have time to personalize signatures for _every single one_ of her adoring fans. After which, Helena’s chronic headache started to tingle between her eyes. She ignored it, downing a diet coke because there was no booze at this (pun intended) God-forsaken convention.

She donned her sunglasses again and did what she did best: dissolved into the crowd to observe, add to her notes that she’d later deliver to Madelyn and input another successful event to their records. All while she watched t-shirts and Ezekiel merch being sold and barbeque eaten, she couldn’t get Mr. Hawaiian Shirt out of her head. Fucking pink flamingoes and blue palm fronds, dark beard and hair and eyes watching her like he could see straight through her, and not in an x-ray vision kind of way.

She didn’t see him again, not even when the meet-and-greet lines finally petered out and people returned to the stage seating in droves. It was time for the big finale, and she watched impassively while Ezekiel and Starlight took her places on the stage, with Ashley and Donna January not far behind. The crowd’s cheering raised to earsplitting levels once Homelander rose up onto center stage, his smile charming and boyish to match his confident swagger.

Helena tapped her clipboard, a bit anxiety in the tick. She knew he wasn’t happy about his talking points, but for _fuck’s sake_ , she thought, _stick to the goddamn script_.

It started off well. He addressed the tragedy of Flight 37, the memory of which still churned her gut terribly. Then, as he paced the long stage, Helena’s spine began to tighten.

“We were attacked. _America_ was attacked,” he said to the crowd, then stared down the barrel of the cameras capturing him from every angle. “ _Some people_ …they want me to come out here and speak empty platitudes to you all. A little bit of corporate talk…but I don’t want to do that. I _can’t_ do that. You want to know why?”

 _You asshole_. Helena grit her teeth. A few more expletives rattled off her tongue, and not all of them in English; there was nothing she could do at this point. There was no turning off the cameras, especially with how he was working the crowd into a frenzy. By the time he was done, she suspected they’d be frothing at the mouth. He proceeded to use the “ _God told me to_ ” premise to rationalize his sense of American justice, which would’ve been horrifying on its own. But by no means was he finished.

“But no, no, no, apparently I have to wait for _Congress_ to say it’s okay,” he snarked. “I say, I answer to a higher law. Wasn’t I chosen to save you? Is it not my God-given purpose to protect the _United States of America?_ ”

She had to hand it to him.

He knew his audience well. 

* * *

“I can’t apologize enough, Madelyn,” Helena spoke into her cell as she walked up to her apartment building. She greeted one of her neighbors with a tired smile as the young woman and her boyfriend came off the elevator with their dog.

A rare sigh came from the other end of the line. “ _It’s not your fault_.” 

Helena nearly tripped on her way into the elevator. She expected a verbal forty lashings, not _understanding_ from her boss. Not knowing what to say, she kept quiet, waiting for Madelyn to continue.

“ _He’s trying to prove a point to me_ ,” said Madelyn. She sounded as tired as Helena felt, but no less calculating. “ _I’ll handle it. Thank you for your report on Starlight._ ”

“Of course,” she said. “See you in the morning.”

Ending the call, she got off on the third floor and headed for her apartment unit.

Helena’s lips thinned as her headache pulsed, full force. She didn’t want to know what kind of clusterfuck Starlight’s hefty confession of sexual assault and agnosticism on stage would bring tomorrow, but thankfully, that wasn’t her problem either. It was Ashley’s.

She already hated herself for thinking of how this would affect _her own job_ first, before considering what Annie January had been going through without Helena knowing. An ignorance she was _sure_ Madelyn Stillwell couldn’t claim to have.

It reopened a slew of old wounds, and Helena was wholly unprepared to deal with a single one of them tonight. With a heavy sigh, she stabbed her key into the lock and stepped through her apartment door. It was dark inside with the curtains closed, and she took some solace in the familiar peace of her home.

Still, she broke the quiet by kicking off her heels as hard as she felt like, satisfied by the loud thump one of them made while crashing into the living room coffee table. A sharp _scree_ from her cat freaking the fuck out offered her a twinge of guilt. His black and white fur was all puffed out when he eventually came to rub up on her calf in greeting.

“Sorry, _Gordo_ , but you should be used to it by now,” she said. She wouldn’t be surprised if there was a new dent in the wall. “Hungry?”

A vocal meow answered her, and she smirked, bending down to run a hand over Gordo’s back and chubby sides. No matter what she did, changing his food, limiting treats, putting him on a diet, she couldn’t get the damn cat to lose one pound. 

“You’re a fat fucking cat, you know that?”

Helena dumped her purse and phone on the kitchen counter before flipping on the kitchen light. She opened up a can for him, but skipped opening up the fridge for herself. Somehow, she had lost her own appetite.

She didn’t even bother turning on the lights in the living room as she sat down heavily on her couch, resting elbows on the top of her thighs and head in her hands, wishing this wasn’t her life. Now that she was alone in the dark, anxiety coiled hotly in her chest.

 _You can’t quit_ , she reminded herself. _You can’t, you can’t, you can’t_.

A knock on the door startled her. Not just because it was intruding in her solitude, but because she almost never had company. Work was firmly kept at work, her family didn’t live in New York, and she wasn’t friendly enough with any of her neighbors to warrant a visit.

Huffing in annoyance, she got up and went to the door. Instinct told her to check the peephole.

She really should’ve listened to that instinct.

She opened the door to none other than Mr. Hawaiian Shirt, or more accurately, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Grinning down at her just on the wrong end of pleasant.

“Evenin’, Helena,” he spoke, and the minute his East London accent washed over her, recognition hit her like a mallet on the head.

“Billy?” she asked incredulously. “ _Billy Butcher?_ ”

“Been awhile.” One of his eyebrows rose, making his grin a little more charming. She couldn’t help but stare blankly at him, until the air between them eventually turned awkward. He gave an expectant look. 

“Gunna invite me in, or we just gunna stand here all night fuckin’ long?”

The shock of his presence must have been short-wiring her brain, because she stepped aside without resistance and let Billy Butcher into her apartment. She hadn’t seen him in…well, roughly eight years now.

“Dark as fuck in here,” he remarked, flipping on the lights in the hall as he passed the kitchen. 

“My God,” Helena shook her head, coming out of her daze. “I didn’t recognize you with the Sasquatch beard.”

His smirk kicked up on one side as he glanced at her over his shoulder. He then took a comfortable seat on her couch and watched her with those dark eyes of his. She could assume he had seen her at the Believe Expo and sought her out, but why?

“I think you recognized me just fine,” he said. “Know how to pack away a burger and chips smothered in chili cheese, don’t ya?”

She fought a blush of embarrassment, crossing her arms, then her legs after she sat down at a lounge chair beside the couch. It was her favorite chair—ugly and brown, but comfy enough to envelop her frame almost as good as a man. “What can I do for you, Billy?”

Glancing at her bare legs and feet, his eyes dragged up until they met hers, shifting with something more serious. Something that evoked faint alarm bells in her mind.

“You’ve been workin’ at Vought for a long time,” he said. “Since before we met, you’ve been kissin’ Madelyn Stillwell’s asshole.”

He leaned in towards, one hand bracing on the couch cushion. She couldn’t look away from his face, made of steel and fire and _knowing_.

“Tell me about Compound V.”


	2. Another Nightmare for the Books

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wasn't going to post for a couple days, but this is a bit of a shorter chapter, so here you go!

**2: Another Nightmare for the Books**

_“Tell me about Compound V.”_

Helena’s chest filled with ice as every one of her muscles froze. Of everything she thought he would ask, that was _not it_.

“What’re you—”

“Don’t fuckin’ fuck with me,” he demanded. “Give us the truth, now.”

His voice was low and dangerous, and she thought deceptively calm. She had sort of known him once, William Butcher, but clearly not anymore. He was a thinly caged animal, and she knew if she wasn’t smart, here and now, she would become prey.

“Look,” she tried. “I’m just a paper pusher. I organize Stillwell’s day. I observe and make reports. All I know is the compound makes them stronger.”

 _Stronger_ , putting it mildly. She knew it was heroin for supes, but beyond its existence, she wasn’t allowed to know much. Butcher watched her like he was putting together the puzzle her admission left him with. Like he was about to take a gamble.

“Know where I just came from?” He gestured vaguely behind him with a thumb. “I found me a little lab, where babies are being doped up with Vitamin Supe. Know anything about that?”

His expression turned grim as Helena’s slackened, her tanned face paling as she tried to compute what the fuck he was saying. Her arms uncrossed and she gripped her knees to keep her hands from shaking.

“You didn’t fuckin’ know?” It was his turn to sound incredulous. She glowered fiercely at him while fighting the urge to vomit.

“No, I didn’t _fucking_ know!” she hissed. Unable to sit in place anymore, she stood, covering her face with both hands. _What. The. Shit._

Hearing him follow her didn’t stop her from gasping when Butcher grabbed her shoulder to turn her around and face him.

“You find out they created a goddamn super drug, and didn’t bother askin’ what the fuck they’re usin’ it for?” His voice raised to match hers, and admittedly, it scared her.

“Those are the kind of questions that’ll get me in a world of trouble.” She stared hard at the floor. Then, the paranoia set in, with the realization that Billy Butcher had just fucked her with knowledge she shouldn’t have. 

“Supes aren’t born,” she stated. She felt weak, like her legs were about to give way. 

He looked down at her wryly. “Nope.”

“They’re doping babies,” she repeated. 

“Now you get it.” Butcher nodded. He took her trembling wrists to move her hands away from her face, with just a little more gentleness than she expected from him. “I need your help, Helena.”

She blinked up at him. _Oh God._

“No. You need to leave,” she said, in a voice much more stable than she actually was. “I don’t know why you’re doing this or what _exactly_ you’re trying to do, but I can’t help you.”

He wasn’t deterred, but his face did tighten up.

“You know exactly why I’m doing this, why I’m here,” he said. His eyes, hazel now that she got a better look at them, were boring down on her. Just like this afternoon, she was pinned where she stood by him, without a touch or a threat.

“Eight years ago,” he began, “The CIA showed me a clip of Homelander, takin’ my wife into a meeting room.”

It broke Helena’s heart all over again, to watch Butcher have to even allude to what happened. What they both knew to be true.

“Now, how do I come to find that the person who gave ‘em the clip, was _you?_ ” he asked.

Her heart hammered away in her chest. “Who told you?”

“Same person you sent it to. Fuckin’ Susan Raynor,” he said, and she could see his anger building. “And the bitch of the fuckin’ bunch: you told ‘em to _make sure_ I saw it.”

Helena swallowed, pulling a strand of hair behind her ear. “You deserved to know.”

“How did _you_?” he asked harshly. His hands clenched into fists, and she could see his body was coiled tight with the effort of restraining himself. She still couldn’t look away. Her guilt wouldn’t let her.

“I _didn’t_ know, until after…” she faltered. “After Becca disappeared, I dug into our records. Didn’t find a trace of her. Not even in Human Resources. So…I broke into the camera archives, found that footage.”

“And after that, what’d you decide to do with that information? That America’s golden boy is a giant fuckin’ cunt,” he advanced, making her stumble back a step, then another, until her back met the wall beside the TV. “Didn’t go back to help the CIA, didn’t go to the police. Didn’t go anywhere at all.”

“Billy,” she tried, but he slapped a hand above her head. She flinched badly.

“You sold your soul, didn’t ya?” he accused. “You still work for _them_ , knowing what you know and what he did to her. To me, that’s almost worse than a fuckin’ supe.”

Helena’s fear elicited a shiver down her spine, but she knew he didn’t understand, because she’d never bothered to tell him, or anyone. She couldn’t. 

“That place,” she said, trembling, “is a fucking nightmare I live every day, and it doesn’t stop. But I can’t quit. I tried.”

He glowered down at her, but at least he was giving her a chance. _One chance_ , she knew, to explain herself.

“They found out what I did…yeah, pretty fucking quick,” she explained. “They knew Becca and I were friends.”

She remembered Stillwell’s threats all too vividly, disguised in that corporate, velvet way of hers. Helena would never forget the cold serene smile on Stillwell’s face as she ran down just how they’d make her “ _un-hirable_ ” outside of Vought, if she spoke out. It didn’t matter that Helena Flores had a Master’s degree from Columbia in business management. That Becca Butcher had been a person, and they let their prized supe get away with violating her, and had likely killed her to cover it up.

And if Helena spoke out, they’d bury her in so many legal suits she’d never be able to crawl her way back to a normal life again. Not to mention, the subtle threat of jail time for disclosing information she had no right to give away. And what fallout might her parents experience in the press, considering they owned a popular restaurant down in Miami? This could threaten their livelihood.

 _No, really think about this_ , Stillwell had smiled. The _safest_ place for Helena to be was right where she was.

But more than all of that, every time she had to stomach looking at that blonde, smirking dickface, she was afraid. She was still afraid.

When she was done explaining, she closed her eyes against the well of hot tears brimming, resting her head against the wall to hide from Butcher. She didn’t want to see that gradual look of begrudging understanding on his face. She didn’t want to be let off the hook—not for being one more person who’d left him, and Becca’s family, twisting in the wind.

Eventually, Butcher pushed off the wall and grabbed her shoulder, firm but not painful. She opened her eyes.

“Then help me take ‘im down,” he said.

Helena barely kept herself from scoffing. She shook her head. “You’re just a man. What the hell are you gunna do to him?”

“Whatever I can to bring him, and Vought, and all those cunts to the ground in a bloody heap of bones and dirt. If you cared about Becca at all—” 

“Don’t you fucking do that,” she warned. She pushed him out of her way and returned to the couch. His presence burned behind her all the while, and at this point, she really wished he would just leave her alone. She was exhausted, in every sense of the word, and the sooner she could crawl into her bed with a bottle of something strong, the better.

“If you had a shred of fuckin’ humanity left, you’d do something about it,” he said.

She paused where she stood. _Where did he get the fucking nerve?_

Her temper finally managed to snap her out of the haze of exhaustion. Turning on her heel, she found him right where she left him. In the middle of her apartment, taking up space and pushing all of her buttons. From the look of his burgeoning smirk, he knew it too. 

“I loved her too. Like a sister, really,” Helena confessed. She hated how her voice cracked. “And you know what’s really fucked up?”

Butcher watched her closely, like he was trying to decide if he believed her. Or maybe he did, deep down, but was just still at war with the rage that had clearly lived inside him all these years.

Helena let out a shaky breath. “I recommended her for that goddamn marketing job.”

Tears finally brimmed over and slid down her cheeks, but at this point, it was a relief to tell the truth she’d shoved down under layers of self-loathing and threats from Stillwell and legal. Still, the wound that had never really healed in her heart was tearing and bleeding all over the place.

“I’ve had to live with that for eight years,” she said. “But I _can’t_. I can’t do this, not even for you.”

And yet, she knew. She just _knew_ what he would say, just by looking at him. It hit her in the gut all the same.

“Yeah, maybe,” Butcher said. “But would you do it for her? Or was all that shit leakin’ out your mouth just some fairytale to help you sleep at night.”

Helena was tired again. She sat on the arm of her couch and shot him a weak glare. “You’re gunna be another nightmare, aren’t you?”

He grinned a cheshire grin. _Cheeky bastard_.

She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. That headache was now a full-blown fucking migraine, and Butcher was already making himself comfortable in her favorite chair.

She leveled him with an exasperated look.

“What do you want me to do?”


	3. Helen Flowers

**3: Helen Flowers**

Billy Butcher couldn’t be asked to remember all the names of his wife’s friends, but he remembered meeting Helena Flores well enough. She had been at the wedding and all that, but for him, there’d been only one woman worth looking at that day.

It was about a year later, upon their recent move to New York City. She’d invaded his house on a Saturday and, together with his wife, filled the living room with ever-jarring Spice Girls hits while he tried in vain to work in the office with the goddamn dog. But he’d promised not to meddle in Becca’s girls’ day, so he’d kept himself busy. It hadn’t taken long for the pungent smell of weed to coil up under the door and hit him secondhand.

When the Spice Girls mercifully changed to some girly romcom, he finally tempted fate and crept out the office, feeling a bit peckish. There he found the kitchen pantry was in a right state.

 _All the crisps in the fuckin’ house_ , he grumbled. And all the beer, he noticed, upon peering around the corner at the display of empty green bottles on the coffee table. Three each, a whole pack of _Presidente’_ s between them and two whole blunts, evidenced by the roaches in the little glass ashtray.

_Jesus._

His girl was a menace.

And so was her friend, talking and laughing louder than the fucking movie they clearly weren’t watching. Billy leaned in the gap between the kitchen into the living room, just to check on things.

They’d pushed the coffee table out to the middle, making room for them to sit on the floor in front of the couch, with their spread of Cool Ranch Doritos ( _his_ , goddamn it), tortilla chips and salsa, remnants of a frozen pizza, Oreos, and other junk spread around them. Becca was painting the other woman’s toes, clearly with less precision than she thought she had.

“I _know_ you remember, Hel,” Becca pressed, giggling as she missed a toe completely and painted a long red strip on tanned ankle. “High school, junior prom.”

“Look at what’ch you’re doing! For fuck’s sake,” Helena shouted through a fit of laughter. “I’ll never forgive you. Setting me up with that weird guy from…from…”

“He was my partner in Honors Chem,” Becca supplied. “He really liked you!”

“Psh,” Helena snorted. “He kept calling me Helen Flowers. You didn’t help, by the way.” 

Another giggle from Becca, and she started on the second set of toes. “I might’a told Jen over in Yearbook to keep that going.”

“ _God_ , what a bitch,” Helena bemoaned. “My parents were _very_ confused by the captions on my yearbook pictures…what was th’ guy’s name? I swear, I can only remember our last year of college. Also your fault, by the way.”

Billy rolled his eyes. _These broads are fuckin’ crossfaded._

“Poor guy,” Becca said, smiling impishly. “He was a Scott Pilgrim fan.”

Helena huffed a laugh. “Yeah, a fucking nerd with Star Trek briefs.”

Billy silently maintained that he sort of liked Star Trek. The original though. _Not that poncey blonde twat in the newer films._

“Ye be not to cast the first stone, oh Helen Flowers,” Becca said, even though her voice wabbled with laughter and inebriation. “You still let him _do_ you with those Star Trek briefs. In the back of your car.”

“Ya know what? Star Trek got down, I’m not even gunna lie.” Helena laughed through her admission, pressing her forehead into Becca’s shoulder to keep herself upright. She wiggled her newly painted toes in front of their faces. “That boy was a gamer, he had dexterous goddamn fingers.”

Billy couldn’t help his own amusement, scoffing quietly to himself. With a shake of his head, he returned to his office cave with his wife’s favorite secret stash of peanut butter cookies—in retaliation for his Doritos.

* * *

“It’s a bad fucking idea,” M.M. said, effectively knocking Butcher out of the memory. He stared back at M.M., raising a brow in silent question.

“She may work for Vought, but she’s basically a civilian, Butcher,” M.M. argued. “If she gets caught with a connection to us, especially to _you_ , she’s gunna get killed. Then they’ll kill _us_.”

“Wait, you think they’d kill her? She’s one of their…people,” Hughie blanched. He always got nervous at an idea if M.M. was against it, especially if it risked getting someone killed. Butcher understood that, even kind of preferred that quality in the kid. M.M. just stared at him in a tired father sort of way.

“Obviously.”

Even Frenchie gave Hughie a pitying look. “Have you not learned, _petit_ Hughie?”

“Just, ya know what? Stop calling me that.” Hughie raised an annoyed hand at Frenchie and cast his worried Bambi eyes back on Butcher.

“She knows the consequences,” Butcher said, “and she’s on board. I’m not about to look a gift horse in the bloody mouth.”

By the knowing look on M.M.’s face, he didn’t buy the _she willingly offered to help_ bullshit, but he wasn’t going to say it. Frenchie also knew better, and just looked resigned. Soon Hughie would fall in with the plan, like he normally did, and then they could get to business as usual. Maybe part of him did feel reluctant to put the girl in harm’s way, but she had her own demons to soothe, just like he had his to help him burn until the end of this. 

“What you got her doin’ exactly?” M.M. asked.

* * *

Helena combed through yet another set of restricted files, finding nothing of value. There were no _official_ records of Compound V. Their many labs scattered throughout the country were invoiced for pharmaceutical research, sure, but for painkillers and other nonsense, not for an unknown drug using human infants as guinea pigs.

Helena forced herself to calm down and breathe evenly, before she vomited her breakfast right here in this dusty, glorified storage room. Any records she might’ve found of Compound V on her own computer had been erased at some point, without her permission.

Which means that someone had rooted through her computer before, and had potentially seen her favorites bar: lately filled with single-serving Pinterest recipes. In her defense, it wasn’t like she cooked for anyone other than herself, and she didn’t like wasting food.

“The fuck are you doing in here?” Ashley barked from the doorway. If that wasn’t startling enough, the woman had angry tears in her eyes and a death grip on her phone, like she was waiting to chuck it like a projectile at any moment.

“ _Jesus_ ,” Helena muttered, calming a hand over her heart. “What’s the problem? What the fuck happened to you?”

“Like you care,” the other woman spat. “Oh, and Stillwell wants to see you. One more _favor_ before I officially ‘exit the premises.’”

Helena’s mouth opened in shock. “She fired you?”

With a final sound of frustration, Ashley spun on her heel and slammed the door closed behind her. Helena heard the loud clacking of her shoes until she reached the elevator. Closing up the files she’d opened, Helena left the archive and made her way up to Madelyn Stillwell’s office. She hesitated outside her door, smoothing a hand over her hair, blouse and slacks before she entered. A tendril of unease worked its way through her chest and stiffened her spine, even as she greeted her boss politely and sat in one of the guest chairs in front of the large desk.

“I’m sure you know by now, Ashley has been terminated,” said Madelyn. Her smile became somewhat tight. “I’ve spoken to Starlight as well.”

 _Ah_ , Helena nodded. They very well couldn’t terminate Starlight as well, no matter how much Madelyn clearly wanted to. And apparently Annie January was smart enough to understand her position. Blowing the Believe Expo was one thing, but admitting she’d been assaulted (and implying the guy was someone inside Vought), gave her the leverage.

“I want you to take up Ashley’s duties in PR,” Madelyn said, disrupting Helena entirely from her thoughts. She stilled, unable to keep her mask of neutrality in place.

“What?” Helena stammered. “But-but I can’t! My experience, and my _skillset_ , is in administration, not supe PR.”

“Which is why I need you to administrate, Helena. You’ve been here long enough to know what we need from our heroes, and they know you,” Madelyn countered. “I fully trust that you can handle their schedules, just for the next couple of weeks while I search for suitable candidates to replace Ashley. You can help me with that too, if your own schedule allows.”

 _Sure_. Meaning Helena would have to _make_ time for that too. But the sooner they find someone to fill the head PR position, the better for Helena and her mounting daily migraine. 

* * *

Three days later, she didn’t even have the energy to kick her heels across the room. She turned on the kitchen light first, leaning heavily against the counter so she could strip one four-inch platform shoe at a time from her aching feet.

Her kitchen had a small breakfast bar. It provided a large open space between the fridge and the pantry on the far right, from which she could see her dark living room—and an unknown shape sitting on her couch. Cocking its head, it stood and started heading towards her.

Sucking in a breath, she grabbed a wooden spoon from a decorative pitcher and hurled it as hard as she could.

“ _Fuck_ me,” the shape growled, batting the offensive object away from his head. Raising a tremulous hand to her heart, Helena finally recognized the unwelcome intruder.

“ _Billy!_ ” she shouted, both in outrage and relief. She leaned against the counter again with a sigh, releasing a slew of muttered expletives. “Why the hell did you break in?”

“Couldn’t exactly lurk outside, could I? That would look a tad suspicious.”

A moment later, the man appeared around the corner with her spare key dangling from his fingers, smirking in spite of her glare.

“Get smarter, Helena,” he said, more seriously. “Don’t leave your fuckin’ key under the mat like a bloody amateur.”

“Lesson learned. Gimme,” she said, holding her hand out for the key. He grabbed her hand, pulling her towards him just a little before he dropped the key into her hand. His warm, heavy fingers curled over hers for a moment before he pulled away, and she looked up at him warily. She didn’t like the coil of nerves his touch sparked, fluttering in her stomach like she was some high school girl again. His dark eyes were dangerous, in a whole new way, and she couldn’t deny that she was getting a bit lost.

Her cat’s hungry mewling gave her an excuse to look away, stepping back from him to grab a can of pate from the pantry. Still, she felt his eyes on her back as she puttered around the kitchen. All the while she wanted to shake herself. _What the fuck is wrong with you?_

This was her dead best friend’s _husband_. He was here because she agreed to help him bring down Vought; not for anything else, no matter what his teasing suggested.

Gordo meowed more insistently, his tail swishing by his food bowl. Butcher’s brow arched.

“That’s a fat fucking cat.”

Helena rolled her eyes and sighed. “Not even my apartment’s safe anymore. What do you want, Billy?” She opened the can of cat food and emptied it into the bowl, then nuzzled the back of her hand along the kitty’s purring face. “There you go, _Gordo_.”

“Gor-do,” Butcher echoed with a snort. His accent didn’t quite compute with the Spanish language, but it sounded endearing coming from his mouth. She smirked.

“Means _fat_ , innit?” he mused. “More of a dog person, me-self.”

“Gold star for you,” she mockingly praised. “I’ll repeat my question: what do you want?”

“Right.” He brightened a bit and reached into his pocket. Another object he deposited into her hand, but this time their fingers barely brushed. She looked down at the old-fashioned flip phone, then back at him, unimpressed.

“A burner phone,” she said wryly. “What am I supposed to be, 007?”

“You know how many ways Vought is tracking your supes,” Butcher said. “Could make your eyes cross. What makes you think they ain’t checkin’ up on you?”

“I leave everything at work,” Helena argued.

“Your cell phone,” he pointed out. “Your personal computer. Fuckin’ hell, woman, they could have this whole place bugged if they wanted done. And how would you know?”

Helena pursed her lips, but he was starting to make enough sense for her to doubt. To worry. She understood why they’d want to bug the supes. They were a product, in Vought’s eyes, and they consented to the tracking devices at least. But she was a low-level Vought employee. Why would they care about her?

 _Probably for moments like this,_ came the more logical thought. She looked down at the burner phone and flipped it open. It had Butcher’s number, along with a couple others she didn’t recognize. This was serious, she realized, and she was _in this_ now. For better or worse.

 _What happened to Becca shouldn’t happen to anyone else, ever again_ , she resolved. For once in her life, she would do the right thing. 

“What’ve you dug up so far?” Butcher asked at last, earning back her attention.

“After three days?” She scoffed. “I was able to wrangle up a few digital files from the archives that may point to something, but I haven’t had a chance to look at it…I won’t bore you with the details, but Stillwell’s got me working more directly with the supes for a while.”

Butcher eyed her in a way she couldn’t figure out; either suspicion, or worry.

“With Homelander?”

She nodded and opened her fridge to grab a few ingredients. Some defrosted chicken, cilantro, and a few other herbs and vegetables. “With all of the Seven, making sure they attend all the bullshit they’re scheduled for, say and do what they need to for the cameras.”

“Fine. Let’s get to those files then,” he said. 

“Uh-uh.” She held up a finger. “Unless you want me to pass out, I need to eat.” 

Butcher sighed in annoyance. She heard him come closer and stopped him before he could take the bag of white rice out of her hand. “Look, if you’re gunna keel over, call a fuckin’ _Dominoes_. We ain’t got time to be muckin’ about like Betty fuckin’ Crocker—”

Helena pressed a hand to his chest ( _a firm wall of a man. Jesus._ ) and glared up at him.

“I am going to make this chicken. You’re gunna shut the fuck up and chop this bell pepper for me while I peel some garlic, and then we’re going to sit at that dining table like adults and have a proper homecooked meal,” she said. “ _Then_ we’ll buckle down and take a look at those files. You got a problem with that?”

Butcher blinked down at her, his lips twitching with amusement. The moment he opened his mouth to speak, she beat him to it.

“Good,” she said, and placed the pepper in his hand. “Chop, chop.”

* * *

She could tell he didn’t want to admit it, but her food was delicious.

“Better than cheap pizza?” she prodded. He rolled his eyes. Meanwhile, she watched him pile more rice and black beans onto his plate for a third time. She knew for a fact that Becca had done the cooking in their relationship.

She’d read his CIA file before. He’d been an accomplished man before his fall from grace, and still was, technically. Former SAS, working with the CIA, reading people better than ever, yet giving almost nothing away of himself. Yet Helena had a feeling the extent of his culinary knowledge didn’t extend past the microwave and boiling pasta. 

“Who cooks over there at...whatever basement you guys are living out of?” she asked. He’d told her about his allies, his friends, whatever they were. She couldn’t see any of them handling the domestic shit, except maybe Marvin. He sounded like he had too much to lose to be mixed up with Butcher and the rest of these characters.

“Eh, maybe Frenchie,” Butcher said. Then there was an amused glint in his eye. “M.M. can make a decent fish. Mostly it’s frozen shit and fast food. Cheap and easy.” 

Helena hummed in response. She didn’t like the environment he was painting. Living in close quarters, among drug dealers and gun runners, never having security or safety, or even something simple as a decent meal.

“That’s a far cry from the cozy house I remember,” she said, though she regretted it upon impact. Butcher’s face sparked with irritation just under the surface. But eventually it dissipated into sadness, however briefly, until he came back to stoic. He’d let her see it though.

“Yeah,” he acknowledged.

Maybe her own melancholy showed on her face, because Butcher changed the subject soon after while he polished off his sautéed chicken.

They learned nothing more from the files she found. At least, nothing Butcher didn’t already know. She was able to find invoices from the labs where the infants were injected with Compound V, helpful evidence that Butcher could use. He finally told her what he’d found out just today: that Vought had somehow given the V to random terrorist groups. The Female he and the boys had saved a few weeks ago, well, she had been a recruit from a terrorist group in the Philippines. Her name was Kimiko, and she had been separated from her brother after being stolen from their village in Japan.

“Dear God, what next,” Helena groaned, rubbing that aching spot between her eyes. “Can’t you take this to the CIA? Who’s in charge now, Susan Raynor?”

“Raynor isn’t going to back us,” Butcher said. Her brows furrowed in confusion.

“Why? You have the V sample. You’ve got hard evidence here of what they’re doing in the labs…”

The way he looked at her then, there was a shred of vulnerability she hadn’t seen before. It looked a lot like the truth, perhaps one he hadn’t been willing to admit.

“What?” she pressed. “What could she possibly object to—”

“She won’t prosecute Homelander,” he said.

Helena closed her eyes for a moment, deflated and angry. _Then what’s the point of this?_ she wondered. But the more she thought of Homelander actually being arrested, it finally dawned on her.

“I understand her fear. They have no way to control him if he resists arrest, or just goes berserk,” she admitted. Then she groaned. “ _Fucking shit_. I have a shoot with him tomorrow.”

Not for the first time, Butcher’s soulful eyes stared back at her while he frowned.

“Try not to do anything stupid then,” he said.

She was touched by his concern. Even _this_ was a leap from just days ago, practically pinning her against the wall and accusing her of selling her soul to Vought. She was glad he could see her for what she was, not what she had to pretend to be. Of course, that was her own fault, wasn’t it?

Pushing away that sobering thought, her smile warmed a bit. “ _Now_ you care about my wellbeing all of a sudden?”

Butcher smirked, but it soon fell. “I just needa get him, Hel. Ain’t no other fucking way for me.”

She knew. It was half the reason she agreed to help. She was risking her job, and more importantly, her life. But she realized that Billy Butcher didn’t care about what happened to him, as long as Homelander and Vought went down.

“Just don’t get killed,” she told him. _My God. She wouldn’t have wanted this for you._

Just like that, the cheshire grin made its reappearance. “Now look who cares, eh?”

Her face felt warm, and she disguised it poorly with a frown. Checking her phone, she saw it was past 2am. She had to get up for work in just a few hours. “Ya know what? Fuck out of my apartment already.”

She tossed a couch pillow at his smirking face and grabbed the rest of the leftovers from the table so he could take it with him.

She then shooed him off, despite his teasing and cajoling to _lighten up, you tossin’ me out on the street already?_ She handed him the container full of leftovers wrapped neatly in a plastic shopping bag. She pointed at him with the dirty spoon that once nearly made a dent in his thick skull. “Remember to share.” 

“For how long I had to suffer your smart mouth to get these spoils?” He held the bag protectively to his chest and treated her with a wink. She flushed hotly, despite her deepening frown. “Not a chance.”

From there she all but shoved him out the door, muttering all the while. “ _Pendejo desesperado_.”

“Oi, Helen Flowers.” He met her honey brown eyes over his shoulder, with that maddening smirk of his. “I don’t mind you cursing at me, ‘s long as it comes with subtitles.”

She shut the door in his face, despite her smile. “Asshole.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, I don't share Butcher's views. I fucking love the AOS Star Trek movies. 
> 
> Also, translation:  
> “Pendejo desesperado.” – “Hopeless, stupid man,” or “Hopeless asshole.”  
> "Flores" - Flowers


	4. Level Zero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I think it's safe to say this is a bit of a turning point chapter. All I can say is I hope you enjoy, and thanks so much to everyone who's subscribed, bookmarked, commented, and are otherwise following this so far!

**4: Level Zero**

“Miss Flores, _where_ is Homelander?”

Helena’s white-knuckle grip on her tablet just barely kept her from throwing her coffee at the production assistant. She took a sip from it to steady her nerves, even though it was scalding on her tongue.

“Chris, if you ask me that one more time, this coffee’s going up your ass,” she snapped. She was, admittedly, not much of a people-person. That had always been Becca, which was why marketing had been such a good fit for her. Or so Helena had thought.

“If I knew where he was,” she said, more evenly, “he would be here.”

Again, supes were whores. But they were also _entitled_ whores, so fuck the schedule she’d painstakingly mapped out for her day to make sure she got to every single event lined up for what was left of the Seven. Thankfully the Deep had been relocated to the Midwest following his public apology, and Starlight was refusing to do any PR shit anyway. This left Helena with Maeve, Black Noir, A-Train, and Homelander to deal with until Stillwell hired a new PR team lead.

As of right now, however, Homelander’s tardiness for this commercial was already causing her undue stress. _He should’ve been here two hours ago_.

It made her suspicious. Homelander often took issue with his lines, and with Stillwell and Mr. Edgar’s vision for his brand clashing with his own arrogance, but he always showed up. He knew how maintaining his image worked, and he took even the smallest shoots like this seriously.

_What the fuck is he up to?_ she wondered. Lips pursing, she downed another long sip of her coffee and addressed the crew.

“All right, wrap it up. We’re going to have to reschedule,” she said. “Maeve has a bank robbery in half an hour. Be ready in Midtown and I’ll meet you all there.”

Just then, a call came in on her cell from Madelyn. Helena sighed, and picked up.

“Yes, ma’am—”

“ _I need you back at the office_ ,” Madelyn said. “ _Homelander is calling a meeting with the Seven_.”

_Oh, Jesus_. Helena bit back a groan. Part of being Madelyn’s eyes and ears meant that “Vought” was always watching, no matter if the supes knew it or not. Butcher’s words of warning filtered through her mind again.

_What makes you think they ain’t checkin’ up on you?_

* * *

She passed A-Train, or rather, he passed her on the way back to her office. It was practically a closet compared to Madelyn’s office across the hall. Logging into her desktop, Helena quickly accessed the camera feed that monitored the Seven’s main conference room. She knew Madelyn was busy in a meeting with Mr. Edgar: a common reason she typically put Helena on the task of monitoring.

Homelander welcomed A-Train into the hall, but that soon devolved into him berating the remaining members of the Seven. _Erratic, unreliable, sloppy_ , he accused of them, and Helena rolled her eyes at the irony. Just this morning he’d bailed on his responsibilities, and in the past week alone had gone off-the-cuff at the Expo and caused a clusterfuck of problems.

“ _I mean, we’re not even the Seven anymore. We’re down to five, and dropping like flies…but at least I know why_ ,” he said, a grin growing on his face.

Helena leaned in towards her computer, her eyes wide and unblinking as he exposed Hughie Campbell—the boyfriend of the woman A-Train ran straight through a few months ago; the guy Starlight had been dating the past few weeks, and one of the men who helped kill Translucent.

“ _Fuck!_ ” Helena hissed. She fumbled for her purse, for the burner phone safely tucked away in one of the inner pockets. With terribly shaking fingers she texted Butcher.

**_They know, Billy. Homelander burned Hughie. I think you’re next_**. 

The message sent, and she let out an uneasy breath. She continued watching the scene with the supes unfold. Maeve, surprisingly, stood up for Starlight, diffusing the tension between her and Homelander for being “used” by Hughie. A-Train looked angry and hyped as fuck as he zoomed out of the meeting, but Helena focused on Homelander. Once he left the conference room, she had a feeling she knew where he was headed next.

Helena pushed past the anxiety in her chest, and plugged in a few codes into her computer that she’d learned to memorize. She had a good photographic memory.

She tapped into the cameras in Madelyn’s office and listened closely once Homelander breezed in. They chatted about the results of her successful string of meetings, until he (not so smoothly) changed the subject.

“ _Hey, do you remember that marketing girl?_ ”

Helena sucked in a gasp.

“ _No, no, about seven, eight years ago_ ,” he continued. “ _Becca._ ”

Madelyn Stillwell seemed hard-pressed to remember a Becca Butcher, claiming she didn’t know the woman was missing and presumed dead by the police. Suicide.

Never did Homelander mention _why_ that might’ve been, and Madelyn eventually tried to tempt him with a private night in together if she hired a babysitter to watch her son.

The entire exchange—dancing around lies and omissions, having to visualize the possibility of these two getting down in her office—made Helena physically ill.

_If they get me now,_ she thought, _I’ll be worse off than Becca._

This time she really did vomit: into the small waste basket beside her desk. When there was nothing left to heave and she spat out the last of it, Helena carefully wiped away involuntary tears from her face so her mascara wouldn’t smudge. She washed out her mouth with a bottle of water left on her desk, fixed her lipstick, and tied up her mess of humidity-frizzed hair away from her face before she checked both of her phones.

No reply from Butcher yet…but there was still something she could do.

So she watched Madelyn, after Homelander ran off to do God knows what. She watched until the woman finally left for the day, so that Helena could gather her courage, and break into her boss’s office.

* * *

Eight years ago, Helena had known something was wrong.

Becca usually insisted on meeting up for coffee in the morning and lunch when their busy schedules allowed, but for two weeks, Helena could barely get two minutes from the woman. Her best friend was withdrawn, quiet and contemplative.

But that wasn’t Becca. She was the sunny one, upbeat and downright fucking _cheerful_ to Helena’s dry, but playful snark. Becca was the one to pull her out of her moods with that simple, funny way of hers, often getting her to admit who had stepped on her toes that day.

Here, Helena found herself unable to do the same for Becca. _Something was wrong_ , and she didn’t know what the fuck to do.

The last time she saw Becca Butcher was in the Vought building. As Helena came out of her office to drop off a report, Becca was coming out of Madelyn’s office with the woman herself. Becca’s eyes were downcast, and she barely offered Helena a smile as they swiftly walked by, eventually disappearing down the hall and around the corner.

Propelled by something she couldn’t name, Helena followed them. She heard the elevators going, and she stood there and watched as the numbers lit up in descending order. Down and down, below the lobby even. Helena’s brow furrowed with confusion.

It stopped at Level 0.

The basement floor. It was considered restricted access for holding some offices and firewall servers, and the onsite R&D lab. 

Helena pushed the button for the next elevator and took the plunge, down to Level 0. Her fob key granted her access, surprisingly, and she listened for the sound of Madelyn’s heels as she made her way around the maze of white halls and chrome metal doors. 

Turning the corner, she caught sight of Madelyn’s blonde hair, and she flattened herself against the wall before they spotted her. She listened carefully but didn’t hear Becca at all. She only heard her boss’s voice trail off before the door was shut.

“ _Good afternoon, Dr. Vogelbaum…_ ” 

* * *

In the chaos that had followed after Becca’s disappearance, and Stillwell’s thinly veiled threats, Helena had never seriously revisited that memory. _Dr. Jonah Vogelbaum_ , she read the file pulled up from an archive database she wouldn’t have been able to access from her own computer. Luckily, Madelyn’s desktop had access to _everything_ , and Helena was good at memorizing. Passcodes were no exception.

_Retired Vought scientist_ , she surmised. _Specialized in biogenetics_.

“What the fuck,” she muttered. His current location was unknown, or just not recorded here, but this didn’t tell her what Becca had to do with all this. Helena delved further. If they knew what Homelander had done, and wanted to pay Becca off for her silence with an NDA like they tried to do with Hughie, maybe she had demanded protection from Homelander. _But why wouldn’t they let Billy go with her?_

And it still didn’t explain Vogelbaum’s inclusion. Still, it gave Helena a start, a reason to rethink the entire assumption that Becca was dead at all. _Sweet Jesus._

She’d have to look for transfer papers, safe houses, transportation, payoffs, anything that could help her piece together the puzzle of what happened eight years ago.

_Damn it, I’m gunna be here awhile_. Helena sighed. Yet inside she burned with a new purpose, and maybe, the smallest bit of hope.

* * *

Butcher was having a shit day.

_Shit week_ really, having his home ransacked and bank accounts frozen, bumming in a basement below a pawnshop with a half a room full of people who hated his fucking guts, and finally having to give up all his leverage—the sample of Compound V—over to Raynor. He owed it to M.M. to make sure what happened to Mallory wouldn’t happen to M.M.’s family, but it still rankled knowing he’d been close to burning Homelander.

_Close, but no cigar._ Now, the CIA had everything they needed, and they refused to pull the trigger because of one fucking supe terrorist. To top it all off, Hughie nearly offed himself going to visit his supe girlfriend. He didn’t even appreciate the lengths Butcher went to save his sorry ass.

Butcher glanced over at the passenger seat at his brooding companion, and he rolled his eyes. “What’s this, the fuckin’ silent treatment?”

Hughie was oddly stubborn, with his lips pressed in a thin line. Butcher’s phone rang, disturbing the otherwise tense silence. He shook his head and held the phone to his ear since this piece of shit car didn’t have Bluetooth capabilities. 

“Mornin’, love,” he drawled. “‘Bout time you answered my fuckin’ calls.”

“ _I’m sorry, I’ve been busy_ ,” Helena replied. She sounded honest, and tuckered out. “ _I take it you got my text though?_ ”

“Yeah, we’re just peachy, being wanted by the feds, Vought, CIA, and whoever the fuck else wants to tango with the boys,” Butcher said wryly. There was a heavy sigh on the other line.

“ _God, I’m sorry. That’s fucking…I can’t even imagine what you guys are going through…I am working on something though_ ,” she said, lowering her voice down to a husky whisper. It wasn’t an unattractive sound in his ear, but he focused on listening intently. “ _Something important…I’m gunna need a little time_.”

“Wanna tell me what’s so important?” he said. She hesitated, and by now even Hughie’s attention was piqued.

“ _I don’t want to say until I know for sure, but I’ll call you if anything changes_ ,” she said. “ _Be safe, all of you._ ”

Every instinct told Butcher to press her for answers, but since they were getting close to Grace Mallory’s estate, he reluctantly let it go. He would have time to check on Helena later.

“All right, Hel. Keep me posted,” he agreed, and hung up the phone. Hughie measured him with an incredulous look.

“So, Annie you hate, but this woman you trust? She works for Vought, with Stillwell and Homelander. It’s the same fucking thing!” Hughie said.

“It’s not,” Butcher said, but Hughie spoke over him.

“It is,” Hughie insisted. “You just like her because she knew Becca. And you. Before you got…like this.”

Butcher kept his calm, despite the twinge of irritation rolling under his skin. Maybe a part of that wasn’t too far from the truth. Helena Flores had loved his wife, no matter what he thought of her staying at Vought. She wasn’t risking her life just because he’d shown up and tried to manipulate her.

And she cared about what happened to them all, people she hadn’t even met. That one was hard for Butcher to wrap his mind around, but maybe he understood now why she and Becca had been friends.

“I keep tellin’ ya what I’ve been saying for months, Hughie, but I’ll tell ya why it’s different,” Butcher said. “Starlight would’a turned you in. She sees you as a murdering criminal, who lied to her the whole while you were together.”

“And you haven’t been lying to your Vought friend?” Hughie accused. “Pretending you give a shit about her, as long as it gets you closer to nailing Homelander.”

Butcher shot him a glare, and let his intimidating silence be a warning as they approached the large black gates of Mallory’s estate. He wouldn’t realize until much later that they hadn’t just been talking about Helena. 

* * *

She smoothed a hand over her hair for the umpteenth time. Getting her natural curls to smooth out into waves was always a challenge, but she’d attempted it for this Vought-hosted charity fundraiser she was expected to attend.

Normally she would appreciate the chance to put on a nice dress, especially the free gourmet food and top-shelf booze, but not even her third champagne could temper her frayed nerves. Her purse buzzed, startling her only a little. She finished her conversation with a fellow employee and moved away from the bar so she could check her phone.

It wasn’t her cell.

Her 007 phone buzzed insistently, but she very well couldn’t pick it up here. She let it go to voicemail before she opened up her texts—predictably from Butcher.

**_Is Homelander giving it to Stillwell?_ **

Nausea pulled at her stomach again, but she shoved it down with a sip of her drink.

_Why the fuck is that relevant?_ she texted back. His response was quicker than usual.

**_Where are you now?_ **

Her brows furrowed in suspicion. _At a Vought gala pounding champagne. Why?_

**_Stay at the party as long as you have to, then go straight home._ **

It was odd not hearing him curse, even over text. He must have been pressed for time. She bit her lip, her anxiety returning. _We need to talk ASAP._

His response surprised her. **_Don’t have time to chat just now. Best put a pin in it for later._**

Normally he was chomping at the bit for whatever information she could give him, especially since she’d been purposefully vague earlier this afternoon. She just didn’t want to get his hopes up if she was wrong. But now that she’d found the evidence, now that she knew the truth…

_I’m serious! Don’t do anything stupid yet. I need to tell you—_

“Helena! I’m surprised you’re still here.” One of the guys from marketing greeted her with a corny clinking of their champagne glasses, distracting her from sending out the text. He’d been asking her out for months, and she inwardly cursed at letting him get the drop on her.

“Yes, well, it’s good alcohol,” she smiled tightly. What the fuck was his name? _John…Jason?_

She stared past him and noticed Homelander approaching Madelyn. They spoke with their bodies close to one another, almost intimate. Soon though, her face changed from pleasant to serious, almost perturbed.

_What the fuck are they gossiping about?_

“Helena, you okay?” said Jake-something. She blinked, her gaze shifting between Jared and her boss walking towards the main building with Homelander on her heels.

“Sorry, think I left something up in my office,” she lied. “Have a good rest of your evening!”

She brushed past Joe’s wounded puppy look of disappointment with only a twinge of guilt. Her mother always said she should be more considerate. Unfortunately, Helena couldn’t care less about Jack-what’s-his-name, or her careful mask. Not at a time like this, where everything was so close to falling apart—Vought, the CIA, the boys, herself. All of it.

Against her better judgment, and Butcher’s warning, she followed the path Madelyn and Homelander had taken to the elevator. She was through the double doors that led back into the main building, halfway to the elevator, when a strong hand curled around her arm and led her down a narrow hall. She yelped in shock and looked to her left, straight up into Butcher’s irritated face. “What the hell—”

He opened up a supply closet and steered them inside, shutting the door swiftly behind him. It was cramped with large shelves packed with cleaning products and supplies. Her heel nearly speared into a vacuum cleaner when she tried to back up.

“What’re you doing here?” she whisper-yelled. He raised a brow at her.

“Thought I told you to go home, not play Little Miss fuckin’ Detective,” Butcher growled. Then he belatedly took her in: the red dress to match her wine-red lipstick, the tall black heels and long brown hair falling down her back.

“Well this is a helluva look,” he remarked. She blushed under his gaze, craning her neck up to meet it. The top of her head barely reached his chin, and her chest nearly brushed his with how little space there was to move in here. The air between them became warm with their shared breaths, but in that moment, every other thought fell out of her head except for how it felt to be this close to a man who looked at her like he was half-starved.

At the same time, he seemed at war with himself, debating something in his head. Here and now though, _she_ at least could finally be honest with herself.

Unconsciously her eyes flitted from his turbulent hazel ones, to his lips. Her hands burned to travel the firm planes of his chest. Helena wanted to raise up on her toes, lengthen her neck and press her lips to whatever she could reach, leaving the claiming marks of her lipstick with each new discovery. She wanted to _know_ what that thick beard felt like against her cheek, along her neck, followed by several _other_ places.

That last thought made her blush deeply, along with the warm feeling coiling in her lower belly.

Something of her thoughts must’ve shown on her face, because Butcher’s lips tugged at a smirk. “Just what’re you thinkin’ about?”

Her voice failed her when she felt his hand move along her waist, wandering to the small of her back. His fingers brushed the soft ends of her hair, then met the edge of her dress along the curve of her spine. Helena barely restrained a shudder at that sensual touch sending sparks over her skin and down between her legs.

_Ooh shit_ , broke her thoughts, as she realized that he’d encouraged her to close the space between them, and now her own roving hand was on his arm pulling him into her and his smart mouth was within devouring range—

Until a hot spire of guilt and panic made her stamp out the pleasurable flutter in her chest. She quickly released his arm and planted a firm palm against his chest.

“Don’t go after Homelander yet,” she blurted out.

Butcher paused, then his demeanor changed as he seemed to remember himself, why he was here in the first place. Clearing his throat, his hand fell away from her and he ( _was that reluctantly?_ ) provided her a bit of breathing room. 

“Well, certainly not here,” he said. Back to business. “Not with the blonde cunt already with her, can I?”

_Her?_ Helena was confused, until she wasn’t. Her eyes widened. “You’re going after Stillwell.”

He smirked, and already had one hand on the edge of the door. “Wait here, like a good girl. Im sure the janitor’ll be ‘round at some point to let ya out.”

“You fucking suicidal moron, listen to me!” She reached to grab his hand, but he braced her shoulder to prevent her from following him out. Before she could stop him, he shut the door which locked automatically. Without her fob key, she couldn’t get out.

He dangled that key along with her cell phone in the glass window between them.

“ _Wait!_ ” she shouted at him through the glass and pounded on the door. But with a flash of a grin, he was gone. She called after him desperately. “Becca’s alive, you fucking idiot!” 

Precious seconds ticked by, but he never came back. He hadn’t heard her. Gripping tightly at her hair, Helena paced the supply closet and scrubbed at her face. Her fingers came away wet with tears. Eventually, she let her back hit the door and slumped down to the floor. Raw guilt and despair claimed her as she dropped her head into her hands.

If Butcher didn’t want her coming after him, his warpath to hurting Homelander, then she knew. He didn’t think he was going to make it out alive.

_Stupid fucking idiot_.

But, if she hadn’t been so fucking stupid and selfish moments ago, she could’ve stopped him.

They didn’t find her until the next morning, indeed when the janitor came in at 7am to start mopping the floors. Soon after she learned what was already hot on the news: a man named William Butcher broke into the home of Vought Senior Vice President Madelyn Stillwell, and murdered her in cold blood. 


	5. The Age of Spin

**5: The Age of Spin**

“It’s…look, it’s not that I’m ungrateful,” Ashley said. She fidgeted while looking unsure, but hopeful. “I just…I thought—”

“We hated each other,” Helena finished for her. She leaned back in the plush chair of her newly renovated office, which had once belonged to Madelyn Stillwell. “We don’t have to like each other to remain professional and do our jobs. I need you because you’re good at our PR. You know how to juggle the Seven and the demands of their schedules.”

 _And God knows I don’t want to do that shit_ , Helena thought. Those two weeks had been pure torture. “You’ll report to me the same way you used to report to Madelyn, all right?”

“Of course.” Ashley stood while Helena made herself busy with answering her emails. She lingered at the door, prompting Helena to lift her gaze.

“Thanks, Helena,” said Ashley, before she ducked her head and exited the office. Helena let out a deep breath. She didn’t want this job. It hadn’t been her goal to become the next Madelyn Stillwell, but the position needed to be filled, and Mr. Edgar had summoned her personally to his office to appoint her. The raise and slew of benefits upgrades were enticing, but none of that mattered to her anymore. There was only one prospect keeping her at Vought, yet it was simultaneously the one thing that made her want to quit more than anything.

Not two hours later, the very reason for her troubles arrived in the form of Homelander, stalking into her office without knocking. She steeled herself, then donned her neutral mask of politeness as she folded her hands on the desk.

“Good morning, Homelander,” she offered.

“Cut the shit,” he deadpanned, and looked down at her from his great height as he sauntered right up to the edge of her desk. He affected a more charming, if mocking smile. “You know, Helena, I don’t appreciate decisions being made about my team without my sign-off.”

“Ashley?” she said. “I thought you worked well with her before.”

“No, not that fucking corporate idiot,” he said testily, “the _candidate_ she found to try and replace Translucent. That blind fucking cripple she brought into my gym.”

 _Oh fuck_ , Helena blanched. She’d told Ashley to wait on that pending Mr. Edgar’s approval.

“Let me be clear,” said Homelander. He braced his hands on the desk and leaned down, until his deranged blue gaze was level with her stoic one. “From now on, I will set my own agenda, approve my own marketing, and write my own talking points. _You_ are not a replacement for Stillwell.”

Helena remained stock still. Her heart was pounding, but she was outwardly relaxed as she let him continue.

“Think of yourself as…a figurehead, if you will,” he said. “A go-between the 99th floor, and _me_.”

She took a calming breath through her nose, and eventually managed a courteous smile. “I understand your concerns,” she began. “Know that I don’t take this position lightly. Miss Stillwell meant a great deal to you, and to me too. She was a mentor, someone I admired a lot.”

_A bald-faced lie._

“I worked with her for almost ten years,” she said. “But I didn’t ask to be promoted. I was appointed Senior VP by Mr. Edgar, and he has personally instructed me to make sure our heroes succeed here at Vought, the way we’ve always done. As _Mr. Edgar_ is the one who signs all of our checks, maybe you would be more comfortable speaking with him on how we can better manage your brand. Give you more _autonomy_ over your public presence.”

Even Homelander had some kind of respect for the CEO of Vought. After a tense moment where Helena refused to back down from his stare, Homelander straightened. His deep frown remained as he seized her up. Clearly he hadn’t expected any pushback from someone like her: the mousy ex-assistant.

“You’re a frigid bitch, you know that?” he said. He turned on his heel and strode out of the room, but before the door shut, he muttered just loud enough for her to hear. “Fucking diversity-hire.”

Helena seethed. Her jaw twitched as she ground her teeth, though she was careful not to show too much of her rage in case he was spying on her from outside the office. When counting backwards from ten didn’t work, she grabbed a stress ball from inside her desk and squeezed until her wrist and fingers ached, then released every curse word she learned from her uncle at six years old.

 _I’m going to get an ulcer at this rate_ , she thought dryly. It didn’t even help to imagine chopping off Wonder Boy’s micro-dick into smaller micro-dick pieces, though it brought a slight smile to her face.

She sighed and returned to her computer, staring at a database of information she now had access to, but no clue where to start. _Becca is alive_.

Becca was _alive_ , but she had no idea where to look.

All she had been able to discover from Vogelbaum’s last report was this: Becca had been pregnant. He and Stillwell had arranged for her to be moved to an undisclosed safe house, where she gave birth to Homelander’s bastard child in peace. But what about afterwards? Where had they taken her?

Now that Stillwell was dead and Homelander knew about his son and Becca, Helena didn’t think she could be blackmailed into staying at Vought any longer. She could potentially quit, if she could reason an NDA with Mr. Edgar. He seemed to be a reasonable man. But until she figured out where Becca was, and where Butcher had disappeared to, for that matter, Helena would have to learn to be the new Stillwell.

* * *

Friday evening couldn’t have come soon enough. Helena entered her apartment, shoulders hunched, and let out a long sigh. She flipped on the kitchen lights first as usual. It half-illuminated a long, prone figure on her couch.

She sucked in a breath in fright— _yet another intruder in her fucking place_. But on closer inspection, it was just Butcher. She smiled in abject relief.

Gordo was curled up on his chest. The large fur ball purred while his claws kneaded the fabric of yet another Hawaiian shirt. Blue pineapples this time.

“I thought you didn’t like cats,” Helena said, her smile still in place. She turned on the living room light and winced at the state of the man. He looked like he’d taken a beating or two, and he blinked narrowly at the bright flood of light probably burning his retinas.

“Yeah well, when fifty pounds of fuckin’ fluff sits on your chest, not much you can do,” Butcher dryly replied. Helena picked up said fluff and lowered him to the ground so Butcher could sit up. She sat down next to him on the couch and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“You all right? What happened to you?” Her hand neared a painful looking knot above his brow, but he waved her off.

“I’m good,” he said.

She shook her head with a wry smile of her own. “Bullshit…what happened with Stillwell? They’re saying you killed her.”

Butcher eyed her a bit more warily as she got up to the kitchen. She rummaged around for some ice and a hand towel. “Yeah, I’m wanted like a fuckin’ Bon Jovi record.”

“Dead or alive. Sounds about right,” she surmised. She filled a plastic bag with ice and wrapped it in the towel, then returned to his side. She handed him the ice pack and slid into her favorite chair, kicking off her heels. All the while he watched her like he expected her to bolt from her own apartment. She raised a brow at him.

“Do you believe it?” he asked, “What they’re sayin’ about me.”

It felt like some kind of test. She answered truthfully. “I know exactly how Vought spins the media. No, I wanted to hear it from you…though even if you did kill her, with what she’s done, I’m not sure I could blame you. At least her baby survived the blast somehow.”

After a long moment, he shook his head. “I didn’t do it. Doesn’t mean I’m not a killer.”

He was worried, Helena realized. Worried of what she thought of him. Perhaps that she’d be afraid of him and turn him in, or even just turn him away. He seemed to underestimate just how much shit she had seen after ten years at Vought.

“I’m well aware,” she said. Somewhere along the way, he had become her friend. _And nothing more than that_ , she reminded herself, when the memory of his body close and his hand curving along her back made her cheeks and neck warm. She fidgeted in her chair and straightened her business casual skirt farther down her knees.

Butcher raised the ice pack to his forehead and grimaced, but his eyes held more vulnerability than usual. She waited patiently for him to tell her what was on his mind, if he wanted to.

“Becca’s alive,” he said eventually. He looked up at her with a burning hope, and Helena smiled.

“I know,” she replied. His brows crunched, confused, then accusatory.

“You _know?_ ”

Her annoyance returned to her then when she remembered. She sat up and smacked him in the arm, ignoring his offended, “ _Oi!_ ”

“It’s what I was trying to tell you,” she snapped, “before you locked me in a fucking closet!”

He didn’t even have the decency to look apologetic. Instead, he just looked rueful. 

"What's that look for?" she asked.

He didn't answer her. Just once, she would like to crack open that gourd of his and find out exactly what was rolling around inside. Just what was he thinking when he looked at her like that?

But Hellena just stared at him, her lips pursing into a grim line. While she could’ve tried to reproach him for his suicidal actions, he had a story to tell. He told her everything he remembered: Homelander having saved him from the explosion at Stillwell’s house, the yellow ranch house, Becca standing there, beautiful as ever…and the son who looked exactly like Homelander.

“Why do you think Homelander let you go?” Helena asked eventually.

“No fuckin’ clue,” he said. But it probably had something to do with Becca. Helena’s eyes burned with tears. She’d known for a few days now, but just the thought of her friend being alive for all this time, probably kept against her will, was as heartbreaking as it was frightening.

“So what’s next?” she asked, sniffling and wiping at her face. “My new position at Vought gives me more access to sensitive data.”

“You kiddin’ me? You’re more of a liability, now more than ever,” Butcher said with a scoff. “They’re gunna be watchin’ you, Helena. I shouldn’t have even fuckin’ come here.”

Her face slackened in disbelief. “What the fuck do you expect me to do?”

"Keep your head down," he said. "I’m gunna grab the boys and figure this out.”

She shook her head. “Billy, you got me into this. You can’t expect me to just…just quit. Not now!”

“I know I ain’t got no right, but I am, and I’m not asking either.” He had more bite to his voice now, warning her with a gaze that boded no argument. “Stay out of it, Helena. She wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

Her temper sparked. He wasn’t her boss, nor her father. He didn’t get to tell her what to do, with what they both knew what was on the line. And he especially didn’t get to manipulate her with what _Becca_ would think or want. It was like he hadn’t cared about Helena’s wellbeing at all, until his dead wife suddenly wasn’t dead, and what she would’ve wanted now dictated every one of Butcher’s decisions. Including treating Helena like a responsibility.

Sorry, it didn’t work like that. Especially because Butcher had not done a single thing that Becca would’ve wanted in the past eight years.

“Not a fucking chance,” said Helena. Before he could get more riled up, she scooched closer up on the edge of her chair and touched his arm.

“Listen, I’ve got it,” she said. “We need to find Dr. Vogelbaum. He’s a geneticist who helped perfect Compound V, _and_ he was the man who raised Homelander. Alone in a lab.”

Butcher considered that with interest. “Jesus.”

“He’s retired now, but he was brought in when Becca went to Stillwell with her pregnancy…maybe he’ll know where Becca is,” Helena finished, and smiled hopefully. She watched the gears of Butcher’s mind turn as he stared at the ice pack in his hand. Finally, he set it down on the coffee table and raised his head.

“Well bloody hell.” Butcher took her face with cool, slightly rough hands, and kissed her on the top of her head. “You’re a fuckin’ angel, after all. I’ll handle the rest.”

Flushing madly, she could only blink as he got up from the couch and went for the door in his long strides. After letting out the breath she’d unconsciously been holding, she scrambled to follow him.

“Just sit tight until I reach out,” he told her, while grabbing his coat from the rack beside the door. He’d been gracious enough to hang it up when he broke into her apartment again.

“Right,” she said, clearing her throat. He tossed her a wink and that devilishly charming grin of his.

Rolling her eyes, she couldn’t help the smile that curved her lips. After he slipped out and shut the door behind him, it left her apartment feeling empty again. Sighing, she tried to forget the tender gesture he left behind, the sensation of his lips on her skin. Now platonic, and sisterly at best.

But Billy Butcher didn’t belong to her, she told herself, and she _didn’t_ want him. Becca still had, and would always have his heart.

* * *

Even though Helena’s own search for Vogelbaum hadn’t yet turned up fruit, she knew Butcher was working on it from his end. Overall, things had been looking up. 

Until Susan Raynor’s death, that is.

Vought’s latest addition to the Seven arrived, courtesy of Stan Edgar, but Stormfront’s edgy “realness” with the media and among the other supes wasn’t particularly pressing on Helena’s mind. She understood that Stormfront was a flashy distraction for the damage control that was keeping Compound V out of public knowledge.

Though when a supe terrorist set foot in New Jersey, of all places, she knew it was just a matter of time. She was tempted to contact Butcher, but his warning that Vought was probably watching her more closely was ever-present on her mind. She had already bought a new 007 phone, inputting all the numbers he’d given her on it before destroying the old one.

It was another few days of scraping herself through meeting after meeting, hashing supe schedules out with Ashley, and juggling Mr. Edgar’s demands, when the actual _shit_ finally hit the fan.

The existence of Compound V had released to the presses. The world was introduced to the truth: that superheroes were not born, they were made. And Vought had the secret recipe.

 _I can’t believe it. They fucking did it_ , Helena grinned. She knew it had to be the boys at work. But she didn’t have time to jump for joy, or do much of anything but stare dumbly at her office phone once it started ringing insistently.

She braced herself by taking a long sip of her lemon water before she answered. She listened to Mr. Edgar speak, nodding even though she knew he couldn’t see her.

“Understood, sir,” she responded evenly. “What’s our course of action?”

“ _Get the Seven together. Focus them on stopping the super terrorist_ ,” he replied. “ _I will call a press conference to address the elephant in the room, as it were._ _Under no circumstance do we acknowledge Compound V as a product of Vought_.”

“Then how do we explain it coming from our labs…sir?” Helena asked. She tried not to sound too incredulous.

“ _We will shift culpability onto Madelyn Stillwell_ ,” he said. “ _Maintain that we had no knowledge of her undertaking in the creation of Compound V._ ”

Right.

* * *

Helena had never been so glued to the news, or so horrified when she watched that evening from the safety of her apartment. Her fingers carded through Gordo’s fur for comfort as she witnessed Stormfront brutally murdering the supe terrorist from New Jersey. He couldn’t have been more than mid-twenties, dirty and threadbare clothing in shreds.

Now his neck was broken and they were calling it a triumph, a heroic effort from Stormfront and the Seven. This is what Vought wanted—a spectacle, a show of justice. They’d created these supes, and now they were all too happy to rip them apart.

Wiping a tear from her cheek, Helena gave in and texted Butcher from the 007 phone: _Are you watching the news right now?_

 ** _Don’t have to_** _,_ came his reply. **_We were there._**

Her mouth fell open in shock. With her brows furrowing in worry, she quickly texted back.

_That girl fighting Stormfront on the roof?_

**_Kimiko_** , he said. **_He was her brother._**

Fuck. _I’m so fucking sorry._

**_How are things on your end?_** he asked.

_Shaken, now that Compound V is out of the bag. Good job, by the way._

She could almost hear his scoff. **_We got a long way to go._**

Yes, she agreed. Evidently, they did. 


	6. Best Laid Threats: Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING on this chapter: for some violence and threat of assault.

**6: Best Laid Threats: Part I**

The sentiment could not be understated: Helena really hated her fucking job.

By 4pm, she caught a short break between a litany of meetings and slumped over half of a paltry chicken salad. Eventually she got sick of chewing the bland food and left it aside, sitting back in her desk chair. The large flatscreen TV across the office played the news on mute—more about Compound V, the rise of supe terrorists, and Stormfront’s latest “rage against the machine” rant against Vought.

Even though the threads of Vought’s public image were fraying now that people knew about Compound V, it was Helena’s job to keep those seams from busting apart.

Secretly _wanting_ Vought to fail wasn’t making much of a difference. She had to _try_ to put out the proverbial fires, to kiss-ass to stockholders and investors and pay off government officials and whoever else Stan Edgar told her to butter up. But it was exhausting, and honestly, taking a toll on her conscience.

She hadn’t truly slept in weeks.

Not to mention, she hadn’t been able to move an inch in locating Vogelbaum. Aside from Becca’s location, Helena was willing to bet he had other useful information about Vought, and possibly how to cripple it.

However, she couldn’t reach out to the CIA either. Her cell phone, provided by Vought, was most definitely chipped according to a Facetime chat with Frenchie and Hughie via her 007 phone. Though Butcher had already swept her apartment and her car for planted bugs, she didn’t want to take a chance that Vought was watching her in other ways.

That, and Butcher had expressly warned her to leave finding Vogelbaum to him.

Helena sighed. She took out the little red stress ball (circa early 2000s though it was) from her desk, squeezing it hard, until her fingers ached. Between Butcher being a pain, Vogelbaum evading her search, and Mr. Edgar busting her ass, she was starting to feel drowned by the very air she was breathing.

Her office door suddenly opened, making her jolt in her seat. Homelander smiled a little, she thought in satisfaction from catching her by surprise.

“Homelander,” she greeted, forcing the wryness out of her voice. “What can I do for you?”

He paced the common area for a moment, letting his heavy boots on her carpet whittle away at her patience. Then he gathered his gloved hands behind his back, and turned to her. His grin fell.

“You can tell me what the fuck you’re actually doing in this sparkly new office,” he said. 

_Good. Off to a great start_ , she wanted to sigh.

“Eating your _fucking_ salad and squeezing that damn ball,” he snarked. He then approached her desk, leaning close enough for her to resist leaning back in her chair again. She would try to ignore that he’d been watching her through the walls of her office like he once had with Stillwell.

“What do you have to be so fucking stressed about?” he said. “I’m the one who’s losing points for no _goddamn_ reason.”

Ah. So _that_ was what this was about. His damn ratings.

Well, his public image was certainly suffering as of late. Stormfront seemed to be picking up all the slack that the recent memes and social media posts were lacking in his favor. But that was _not_ Helena’s fucking problem. It was Ashley’s, and _his_.

Very fortunately, Mr. Edgar pinged her phone with a new meeting, starting in five minutes. Gathering a notepad and some files she meant to bring him this morning, Helena stood and offered Homelander a nod.

“I understand your frustrations,” she said. “Unfortunately, I do have a meeting with Mr. Edgar. If you’d like to walk with me, we can continue this conversation.”

Scoffing derisively, he allowed her to pass by him on her way out of the office. That he followed her didn’t surprise her, though she’d hoped he’d find that portrait of himself in the hallway more interesting than hashing out his complaints.

“As for your stats, we have the entire PR team working on a new campaign for you,” she started, but a hand, stronger than any vice, gripped her arm and shoved her against the wall hard enough for her skull to smack against the plaster.

The air was knocked from her lungs as she stared up at Homelander, wide-eyed and stunned and inwardly _pissed_.

But also, fucking terrified.

He looked down at her coolly. Even with her heels, he stood roughly a foot over her.

“What the fuck are you doing here at this company,” he grated out, “if _my numbers_ don’t matter to you?”

His fingers moved from her arm up to her neck. His thumb gradually put more pressure on her trachea until it became painfully impossible to breathe, and she scraped at the wall with her nails, blinking against the well of frustrated, panicked tears. _Don’t let him see. Don’t let him see you’re afraid._

Homelander gazed up at the heavens, letting out a sigh of exasperation. 

“Don’t give me that bullshit tone,” he said, “like you’re trying to _handle_ me. Be honest, Helena.”

An echo of a memory filtered in her mind, from the day this all started with Butcher forcing his way into her life. _Give us the truth, now_ , he’d said.

The gears of Helena’s mind turned frantically, grasping for something to say that would get her the _hell_ out of this. Homelander wasn’t a complete idiot. He knew she wasn’t like Ashley, or even like Edgar.

But… _shit. That’s it_ , she thought, her face going numb and her nails biting uselessly into the hand around her throat.

She saw it. The truth, now that he’d resorted to intimidating her physically. He was trying to figure her out.

 _What would you give to read my fucking mind?_ she wondered, studying the way he watched her. He released his thumb from her throat enough for her to suck in a proper breath, and then eventually speak.

“The _truth_ is, you lasered an innocent young man when you went rogue outside of U.S. borders,” she said, with difficulty. Her voice was hoarse as she paused every now and then for wheezing. She tried to show nothing on her face when his twisted up, both angry and petulant.

“And in a public assembly in front of our building, you implied there were other cases like this in the past. We’re doing everything we can to mitigate the damage.” Helena gently massaged her aching neck. “But we’re less than credible right now, the way Stormfront’s pulling Vought through shit any chance she gets. Is that honest enough for you?”

Maybe there was a part of her that really had a death wish.

Homelander’s hand replaced hers and the pressure on her throat returned; she had a feeling he was going to put her head right through the fucking wall. But then he leaned in, letting his body cage her into the wall more than his goddamn hand. Her eyes flitted past him and tried to connect with anyone passing by, but there was no one in sight. The hallway was empty.

“You act all cold and stoic, but I can hear your pulse racing every time we have our little chats,” Homelander said, tilting his head as his brows rose and a smirk spread across his face. “Do I make you uncomfortable, Helena, or is it…something else?”

 _Oh, you fucking_ —

It took everything she had not to spit directly into his eye hole. He was revoltingly close, and his touch was harder than a whale’s dick. She met his eyes.

“I _assure you_ ,” she managed out. “We’re working on your numbers.”

Much longer and her lungs and heart were going to give out. She could see darkness and spots on the edge of her vision.

But, with a final annoyed grunt, his grip released and the air in front of her was blessedly empty. She gripped the wall to try and stop from falling hard on her knees (didn’t work too well). Meanwhile, she all but hacked out one of her lungs.

By the time she could look up with a wet and bleary gaze, the flash of his cape was gone.

* * *

While getting out of her black sedan, Helena glimpsed her own face in the rearview mirror. Her normally tan skin was pale, her eyes red. She gingerly stretched her neck in the reflection and saw the beginnings of a yellowish-purple mark. Clearing her throat, wincing at the pain, she shook her head and grabbed her purse.

 _No cooking tonight_ , she decided. She didn’t have the energy. It would be ordering in from her favorite Chinese restaurant, complete with eggrolls, dumplings, _and_ crab Rangoon. And the cold beer in her fridge was already calling her name.

Smiling a little at her plan, she unlocked the door to her apartment and found the lights were already on.

She stilled in the doorway. Her smile fell as fear crept up her spine…until Butcher came into view, pacing across her living room like a circus tiger waiting for his chance to bite into some tender ass. And _not_ in the human fun way.

“I’m not in the mood today, Billy,” she snapped. She dragged herself through the front door so she could dump her stuff on the kitchen counter.

“Can’t say I am either, love,” Butcher said. “But, Christ…I don’t know. Everything’s fucked.” He didn’t really look at her yet, even though he stopped his pacing.

Helena sighed. He was riled about something, but she just didn’t have the energy to care like she usually did. She made a beeline for her chair, intending to remove her heels and simply exist in a vegetative state for a while.

Until one of her bruised knees twinged, and her ankle wobbled. 

Butcher caught her fast by the arms before she could fall. His hands were warm, and his grip wasn’t painful in the slightest, just firm and steady. It still made her gasp, and on some terrible reflex, she flinched just for a moment in fear.

Butcher noticed. Immediately he let go, though his hands remained hovering over her arms in case she toppled over again. Her heart lurching, she avoided his furrowed brows and hazel eyes and continued to her chair.

“What happened?” she asked. “Something’s obviously up, or you wouldn’t be here.”

His head tilted as he watched her with a calculating look. She waited with bated breath. _Please…don’t ask._

As if answering her prayers, the intensity of his gaze eased away from her and he sat opposite on the couch. For a couple of silent minutes, he didn’t speak. She waited, knowing he was working himself up to something.

“I found Becca,” he said. Helena’s eyes grew wide. Gripping the armrests, she practically hauled herself to the edge of her chair even though it was hard working her way out of the deep back and cushion around her.

“ _What?_ ” she hollered, still half-consumed by the chair.

“I found her,” Butcher repeated. “I was…with her.”

Tears pricked at her eyes, and a few even fell. She knew there was more to it, as he was looking down at the coffee table rather than her. “Then why isn’t she here, Billy?”

It took him a moment, but eventually he was honest. Becca had a son. Homelander’s son, and she refused to leave without him. She refused Butcher, forced him away.

Helena couldn’t fathom it.

“Tell me,” Butcher said, “What the ever-living _fuck_ was it all for then?”

She had no answer for that, as it was the same question turning over and over in her own mind. She felt dizzy with confusion.

“You offered to get Ryan out too?” she asked. He nodded, though his eyes were dark.

“For all the good it done me.”

Helena frowned. _That right there_. She knew then what might’ve held Becca back, but Helena didn’t have the heart to condemn him. If she had been in his place, or even in Becca’s for that matter, she didn’t know if she would be strong enough, or kind enough to care for her rapist’s son.

Butcher finally met her stare with a shrewd one of his own. He rested his elbows on his knees and gestured at her. “Why’d you come in here all huffin’ puffin’ mad. Supe spat in your coffee?”

For once, she didn’t appreciate his teasing. Her fingers curled around the armrests of her chair a bit tighter.

“Let’s just say being Stillwell is harder than I thought…” She leaned down and brushed her hand over her cat’s back and tail when he came to nose at her ankle. “I don’t know how much more I can take.”

With her eyes cast down, she didn’t notice how Butcher’s narrowed on her, his frown deepening at her darkened, uneasy demeanor. He wasn’t used to her being the more worrisome one between them.

“Something happen?” he asked.

Her insides chilled at the question, but she tried her best to brush it off. _Conceal, don’t feel. Be a fucking kid’s cartoon if you have to_.

She didn’t want him to think she couldn’t handle this. Literally her _one job_ in this whole operation against Vought, was _staying_ at Vought, being their eyes and ears in the company. If she couldn’t do that much…

“Just the usual bullshit,” she said, and got up so she could find the old Chinese takeout menu she kept in one of the kitchen drawers. “I’m getting some orange chicken and house fried rice. Want anything in particular, or—”

Butcher’s gentle, but firm hand on her shoulder stopped her. “Wait a fucking second.”

She gasped as his free hand came up and stopped just shy of brushing her neck. His eyes were dark and damn near furious, zeroed in on the stark bruising along her throat. “Have a brawl with the car door, did we?”

His tone was dry, but his gaze warned her not to lie. _Give us the truth, now._

A knock at the door saved her. She lowered her gaze and stepped out of his pseudo-touch, and away from him. To her, his concern seemed almost brotherly, and she didn’t want to think about why that irritated her. Not again, anyway.

Knowing Butcher was waiting somewhere behind her, she braced herself an opened the front door. There stood the uncertain faces of Hughie Campbell and Mother’s Milk.


End file.
